Tenzo - Zen Cook, aka, Planning WAY Ahead

This week between Christmas Day and the New Year, I am working, but I am working from home. I'm trying to get some of the "big picture" things done for which I never seem to have time in an average ministerial week - a website project on social action in our church, some work for a denominational committee on which I serve, and - last, but most certainly not least - some planning for my upcoming sabbatical.

That's right! I'm currently in my 5th year of ministry at this church, and according to my letter of call I am to take a sabbatical after my 5th, but before my 7th year of service. That would be during my 6th year, for those unaccustomed to the oddities of letter-of-call language.

So, today was a fun day as working-at-home days go, since I spent much of it planning what I'd like to try to do for five months beginning on January 1, 2007.

Sabbaticals are neat things, from what I've heard. They're intended for rest and renewal - they're not vacations, but neither are they work. The idea of a ministerial sabbatical is that one gets to temporarily leave behind the day-to-day responsibilities of pastoring and preaching and take up instead some new way of living that restores one's soul and makes one's heart to sing.

And nothing makes my heart sing more than cooking.

So, here's the first draft of a plan for my 22 weeks of promised renewal:

1 week OFF at the beginning
15 weeks at culinary school, in a culinary certificate program, 19 hours per week
1 week during culinary school vacation traveling to someplace warm - my beloved's fondest desire every winter, not as yet fulfilled
2 weekends plus 1 full week at a zen retreat center.
3 weeks near the end to do whatever I darn well please, including, very possibly, absolutely nothing
1 week OFF at the end

One of the best parts of this plan as far as my beloved and I are concerned, is that - with the exception only of the 2 weekends of zendo - we will have, for 5 glorious months, the sort of "normal" weekend about which ministers and their families usually only get to dream. Culinary school is in session only 3 days a week, and so every weekend will be a 4 day weekend for me!

I'll get to cook - better yet, learn something about cooking. And I'll get to meditate: I'll meditate on cooking, I'll meditate while cooking, I'll even cook while meditating.

To help me focus on my sabbatical, I've been reading some today about Zen cooks. The picture at top, left is the characters for tenzo - the zen cook. The office of tenzo is one of the great Temple offices in Zen buddhism. The tenzo is responsible for feeding everyone at the zendo. The ancient mandate of the office of tenzo is this: "Putting the mind of the Way to work, serve carefully varied meals appropriate to each occasion and thus offer everyone the opportunity to practice without hindrance."

In short, cooking as spiritual practice. And cooking to feed the spiritual practice of others. There's a great dharma talk by a tenzo - Ven. Jinmiyo Renge osho-ajari - at the White Wind Zen Community website: www.wwzc.org/dharmaTalks/BraisingTheMindofTheWay.htm.

And from that talk, a wonderful quote (about cooking, and possibly also about sabbaticals) to close out this post:

"If we only ever choose what is most habitual for us, the staleness of the same thoughts and feelings and storylines that we go over and over and over even though we already know them all, this is a bit like sitting down at a banquet table laid with a wonderful feast. But instead of participating, we do not even look up. We sit clutching a plastic Tupperware container filled with three-day old macaroni and cheese and pick at it with a plastic fork."

Wake up to the feast that lies before you, people! Wake up! Wake up!

Worlds Converging

One of the things I like about this blogging business is that I can artificially compartmentalize my life in a fictional sort of way - I can talk about food and cooking and all things good here and talk about ice hockey, knee injuries and all things bad on my other blog.

But sometimes, there's no keeping things separate. Take the other night, for instance. I came home from work intent on fixing supper for my beloved and myself, but not everything always goes as planned. Not every culinary adventure can be executed as magically and flawlessly as our pre-Christmas Truffled Lobster Risotto feast, for example.

On the recent night in question, my intent was to prepare a simple supper - broiled pork chops, potatoes au gratin with sheep's milk blue cheese, leftover steamed broccoli with a drizzling of leftover saffron aioli. But things started to go awry from the beginning.

First, it took me longer to get home, into the house, and started with my prep work than I'd planned. I didn't begin until a little after 7pm. I knew the pork and the potatoes would take at least a half hour. I was hungry. More than hungry, actually, and so was my better half. I got going. Broiler on. Potatoes peeled and sliced, garlic minced, and both tossed with cream, salt and pepper. Everything in the oven.

I'd thought that the broiler would be hot enough to cook the potatoes, covered, while the pork cooked. First mistake. I thought that the oven fan was actually vented, which it appears not to be. Alas. Second mistake. I had to run upstairs at one point to kill the smoke detector using a letter opener, because I couldn't actually reach it and there was nothing to stand on.

I'd bought a new kind of wine - French, liked the label, chickens on it - third mistake. It was hard to open, I cut my fingers on the metal wrapper that covers the cork, and then, after all that work, discovered that there was no cork. Not even a screwtop. Nothing. I couldn't bring myself to believe that even a cheap french wine was meant to be sealed by tin wrapper alone and so I poured that wine down the drain in frustration and started with another bottle.

Meanwhile, the pork came due, but the potatoes were still utterly uncooked. I started cursing maniacally. The pork came out. The oven was reset to an outrageous 510 degrees and the potatoes stayed in. Distributed the broccoli on two plates, made a couple of trips back and forth to the microwave to try to warm the broccoli, without actually cooking it anymore. Tried to bring the aioli up to room temperature without actually warming it. This was about the time I made my trip up to the second floor to battle the smoke detector. I cursed again. My poor wife is witnessing all this culinary cursing chaos from the living room, where she is trying to remain neutrally supportive with her head buried in her People Magazine.

Once I was upstairs slaying the battery, the microwave buzzer went off, as did the oven timer. Came back down. Poured a glass of the new wine from the bottle WITH the cork. Made another trip to the microwave, back via the kitchen island to the oven to check on the potatoes. And then, just as I was stepping around the island, I heard...

(If you want to read the rest of the story, I'm afraid you'll have to go to my other blog - www.creasedge.blogspot.com.)

Lobsters, Truffles, Saffron...And Chocolate

Last night we got together with some dear friends to cook and consume our annual pre-Christmas dinner. The tradition started a few years ago, when we decided that we would rather give to one another the gift of our time and share with one another the gift of good food than exchange stuff.

We started our little tradition by going out for a fancy feast in December; but whereas two of us really enjoy the the menu planning and food preparation and two of us don't mind cleaning up after the chefs, well, why not make an afternoon and evening of it? Why not spend 7 or 8 hours together fixing and feasting, soup to nuts? And so we have. I look forward to it every year!

This year we began our menu planning with a couple of themes...lobster would be our featured ingredient and saffron - brought from India by friends of our friends - would be our featured spice. Once I'd plunged deep into the planning phase, I expanded our scope to include truffles, of all things! And this is how it all went...

We started with a simple fonduta - an Italian fondue - with fontina cheese, egg yolks, milk, and shaved black truffle. Then, thus fortified, we began working on the rest of the meal: a truffled lobster risotto, grilled asparagus with saffron aioli, and a simple salad of mesclun with a truffle-infused sherry wine vinagrette.

It was delicious, if I do say so myself, but, of course, we couldn't stop there. A fancy meal deserves to be finished with a fanciful dessert. The chocolate-ier, the better. And so, as our grand finale, we prepared Champurrado's (www.noonessfool.blogspot.com) Chocolate, Walnut and Raspberry Torte, finished with fresh raspberries and whipped cream and served with champagne. It was an unbelievably delicious ending to an incomprehensibly fantastic meal in the company of incredibly wonderful friends.

(The only thing we didn't do that we should have done was to manufacture dark chocolate rose leaves to serve with the torte. Call us lazy. Call us heathens. Just please don't call Champurrado to let him know of our patisserie failings!)

Capri!

It's like Christmas come early around here! On Friday, when I ordered my kefir grains, I also ordered a couple of bulk teas - an organic Gunpowder green and an organic whole-leaf Koslanda from Ceylon. Those arrived yesterday. I ordered a few books for work, which I haven't received yet. I ordered some cheese salt and some pH testing strips from www.cheesemaking.com. Those arrived Monday. And then, to top it all off, I ordered a baseball cap from a cheesemaking outfit in Central Massachusetts.

Westfield Farm in Hubbardston has been making all-natural goat and cow milk cheeses since 1971. Chevre is the name of goat cheese - French for goat. Capri is the name for the goat cheese made by the good folks at Westfield Farm. They make between 900 and 1,500 pounds of handcrafted cheeses every week. They are very busy. Their cheeses have won many awards.

I first came across their Capri logs in the dairy section of the local farm market in the town where we used to live. The market sold milk from their own farm cows and cheeses and other dairy products from other local producers. I fell in love with Capri.

Since then I've seen Capri logs around in a few other small-scale dairy stores and some of the larger natural food grocery chains, like Whole Foods. You can also order all of their cheeses online. www.chevre.com.

So, anyway, I decided awhile back that I wanted to do my small part to help publicize the great cheeses of the New England region, so I did a search for small-scale producers that sold t-shirts or baseball caps that I could wear about town. I mean, the Red Sox don't really need my help. You know what I'm saying? And of all the cheesemakers, Westfield Farm was the only one! Which is just as well, since I'm such a fan.

On Friday, at the end of my ordering spree, I went to their website and ordered a cap. $8.99 plus shipping. A good deal. And in the comment section of the order form I wrote a little message about how much I loved their cheese and how I'd like to help advertise for them by wearing the hat around.

And guess what. Yesterday a little box arrived. Spread across the top of the contents was a note written on a big strip of shipping paper in black magic marker, all in capital letters that said:

"[MANCHEGO]-
GLAD YOU LOVE THE CHEESE.
THANK YOU. HERE'S ANOTHER CAP
IN CASE YOU WANT TO MIX IT UP.
WARMLY, BOB@WF"

And sure enough, under the note, not one, but two caps! Isn't that kind?

So, I'll be wearing one or the other all the time now. If you see me on the street, be sure to say, "hello." And in the meantime, be a pal and order some cheeses from Bob! They make great Christmas Gifts. They're great for holiday parties. Great for birthdays. Great just to have around. And best of all, you'll know that you're supporting a nice local guy who is skilled in the art and science of cheesemaking!

What a friend we have in cheeses, indeed!

Manna from Heaven

On Friday, I did something that I don't think I've ever done before. I took a crisp, new $20 bill and put it in an envelope and mailed it to Ohio, to a woman I've never met and to whom I've never even spoken.

Don't send a check, she had written. She doesn't deal with banks.

It sounds kind of shady, doesn't it? And it was all to acquire some of the substance shown above. Looks kind of shady, doesn't it?

Well, in case you're not already familiar, gentle reader, I'd like to take this opportunity to acquaint you with kefir grains. Kefir grains are used to produce kefir, a fermented dairy product, which can be made from any kind of milk.

Kefir is sort of like either a thick milk or a thin yogurt in consistency, with a somewhat tangy and refreshing taste, and which is filled with nurtition including more probiotic cultures than yogurt. Consumed regularly, it helps to reestablish the good flora - the good bacteria - that live in your gastrointestinal tract. The good flora then help you digest the rest of what you consume.

Kefir originated in the Caucasus Mountain region. It is thousands of years old. One story of its origin is that it could have been the manna described in the Biblical story of the Exodus - the white stuff that fell in the desert each day to feed the wandering Israelites. A miracle food. Another story is that the Prophet Muhammed gifted it to the shepherds on a trip through the Caucasus Mountains. In which case, it would also be a miracle food.

The word kefir comes from a Turkish word that means "good feeling." It provides complete proteins, minerals, and is particularly rich in the B-complex vitamins. It has been used to help treat people living with AIDS, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, ADHD, and all sorts of intestinal disorders. If allowed to ferment long enough, the grains will breakdown all of the lactose in the milk, making kefir the ideal dairy product for the lactose intolerant. People who have consumed it regularly as part of their traditional diet are reported commonly to live to be 100 or more years old.

You can make Kefir at home. All you need is some milk - skim or fat, raw or pasterized, cow, goat or sheep - any kind will do; a clean jar; and some kefir grains. Put the kefir grains in the jar, pour the milk over them, and let them set out on your counter, unrefrigerated, for between 24 and 48 hours. Strain it, start the next batch of milk using the grains, and voila! You can drink your first batch of kefir now or put it in the fridge to slow the fermentation and drink it later. You keep using the grains and over time they multiply. Be forewarned, next year, all my friends and relatives will be getting free kefir grains. And you, too, can become kefir grain farmers.


Of course, you can also buy kefir in some stores - natural food stores and health food stores, including Whole Foods, where I have gotten mine. Once you've acquired the taste, you can really use it in many ways interchangeably with milk or yogurt - in smoothies, shakes, on cereal. You can bake with it. You can even make cheese with it, which is on my list of things to do. The SuperFood fans among you should know that kefir and yogurt are the only two dairy products on The List.

Today, my 1/4 cup of live kefir grains was shipped by priority mail. Within the next two days, it should arrive along with one page of instructions - I don't expect to encounter any surprises - and 6 pages of kefir recipes, fun and trivia. I'm so excited, I can hardy wait. By the end of the week I should be able to report on my first homemade batch of kefir. In the meantime, it's off to the store for more kefir to keep me feeling good until then.

"A Religious Art"

I won't bore you with what I ate on my first day after the fast. Well, maybe just briefly, if you don't mind terribly...
Breakfast - warm brown rice with a compote of prunes, apricots and cranberries.
Lunch - homemade miso soup using, yes, leftover vegetable broth, and including garlic, onions, tofu, spinach, fresh shitake mushrooms, and, of course, miso paste.
Snacks - a reasonably-sized chunk of young goat gouda and a cup of goat yogurt.
Dinner - We went out to a new-to-me family-owned and -operated Middle Eastern restaurant here in town that serves not only meaty, but also vegetarian and even vegan versions of traditional Middle Eastern food. Everything is made to order. A definite winner! I had a Greek salad, a vegetarian combo platter that included meatless Moussaka, Mujadara, and Spanakopita, served with homemade yogurt. Homemade baklava and Turkish coffee for dessert.

Thanks for your patient indulgence.

Now, on to the intended topic of the day.

This morning I was browsing again through a book that my friend Aral gave me last year, called Not for Bread Alone, which is a collection of writings on "Food, Wine and the Art of Eating." In it is an essay by Judith B. Jones, called "A Religious Art." I'd like to share just a bit of it here with you.

It begins with a quotation, which her husband had once posted for her on their refrigerator door, and which is from the Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, who was a prominent Process Theologian:

"Cooking is one of those arts which most requires to be done by persons of a religious nature."

Amen!

And the following are quotations from Ms. Jones, herself:

"Cooking demands attention, patience, and, above all, a respect for the gifts of the earth. It is a form of worship, a way of giving thanks."

"But what about all the time it takes, one is constantly asked - all the shopping, tracking down of choice produce, hours of attention lavished on the preparation of a meal? I guess to many people in our world of modern conveniences, it is irrational. But then most pursuits 'of a religious nature' are irrational."

"...I've been pursuing the root of the word 'religious' and I find that it is thought to spring from religare, meaning to bind, to tie fast, to reconnect. Isn't that exactly what we do when we cook? We connect again to the earth, to the source of our food, and we bind to one another in the sharing of it, in the breaking of bread together, the celebrating of life."

Beautiful words and beautiful thoughts with which to start the weekend! Good eating and Godspeed!

The End of the Fast and A Hindu Goddess I Could Love

The cleanse is nearly over. And it was good. I just finished my last fast supper - brown rice, steamed broccoli, fresh cherry tomatoes, all mixed together with garlic and crushed red pepper. Colorful and delicious. Although next time, I think I'd probably add some tofu.

It's funny what I've come to crave over the last five days. I thought I'd most miss cheese, bread and wine. I did miss cheese. There is a hunk of raw goats' milk gouda in my refrigerator calling out my name. It's been whispering to me with increasing volume and intensity all week long. I also developed a longing for tofu, which, frankly, I haven't bought for years. It even sounds good plain. The last five days I've begun to become somewhat pleasantly accustomed to utter simplicity. Somewhat.

What has been most interesting has been watching how my perspective on the fast itself has changed through the course of the week. For instance, I started calling it a "fast" rather than a "cleanse." It began to take on more and more spiritual significance and less and less physical importance.

In the beginning, rice, veggies and fruit seemed like such a terrible deprivation. By day three, rice seemed almost like a gift from the gods for which I could hardly wait. I was tiring of vegetables. Day four - broth day - had me appreciating vegetables again. This morning, day five, I was unbelievably grateful for my odd little breakfast, which consisted of mashed banana and brown rice. I could literally think of nothing more delicious. I could imagine eating it every morning of my life with utter joy and exuberant gratitude.

I never felt hungry. I always felt sated. But I did spend a great deal of time thinking about food - even more than usual, I would say. In part I've been thinking very carefully about the foods I most want to eat in breaking the fast. I want to be deliberate about it. I want to choose wisely - not necessarily always healthily, but wisely - sometimes decadently. I mean, are donuts really worth the cost of 5 days of fasting? No. But goat gouda is.

I read a few books on faith this week - Anne Lamott's Plan B and Sharon Salzberg's Faith. I'm sure that added to the spiritual focus of the week - that and my deepening awareness of Advent. Anyway, to get to the Hindu goddess part...

Sharon Salzberg wrote about the ishta dev - the personal deity to which one offers one's heart. You choose a god or goddess based on the qualities you most want to emulate. She says for her, if she were to choose an ishta dev, it would be Lady Liberty, as in the Statue of. I might have said Jesus or the Buddha. But that's another story.

It caught my attention for some reason. Perhaps because all the fasting was making me think of Gandhi whose autobiography kept catching my eye from my office bookshelf. And so, to indulge my curiosity, I started searching the web for Hindu deities. Surely, surely, there must be one for me...

And eureka! I found her! Annapurna, pictured above, is the Hindu goddess of food and cooking. She is the goddess of abundance and nourishment. She is said to have the power to supply food to an unlimited number of people - to everyone who hungers. An incarnation of Parvati, the wife of Shiva, she is pictured above giving food to Shiva that he might have the energy to attain enlightenment. She "symbolizes the divine aspect of nourishing care. The cook provides his guests with the energy to best follow their destiny. When food is cooked with a spirit of holiness, it becomes alchemy." (Compliments of Christine Gruenwald and Peter Marchand at www.sanatansociety.org)

And that for me, my friends, sums up pretty nicely what it's all about.